'Pentanim' printed from http://nrich.maths.org/

Rules of the Game

Place one counter on each spot. Players, in turn, remove one counter or two adjacent counters; ('adjacent' means that they are connected by a line and there are no other counters in between). The winner is the player who picks up the last counter or the last two counters.

Finding Winning Strategies

Have you played some of the Nimlike games from the September 1999 collection? Perhaps you are developing your strategies for these games? Make a few notes on good strategies and try to see common patterns. A complete mathematical analysis has been made of Nim so look out for some articles here in future months. You may become expert at one of
these games. Then the challenge is to spot similarities and adapt strategies that work for one game to other ones.